Monday, January 5, 2009

I was going through some news articles that were posted on a news service provided by the defense department known as the Early Bird. It's a simple site that posts full articles from newspapers, wire services, and even television reports that deal with defense related topics. One was about a Company Commander in Kamdesh, Combat Outpost Keating in Nuristan Province. He's replaced a Captain that was struck by an IED and evacuated from the Afghanistan back to Walter Reed. After several long hard weeks of fighting at Walter Reed, he passed away. The name jumped off the page: Rob Yllescas. I knew him, not well, but knew him nonetheless. We worked around each other in Iraq. His wife, Dena, has a blog (http://yllescasfamily.blogspot.com/) in which she's keeping friends and family up to date with her struggle, Rob's recovery efforts, and now her coping. I remember him, for my part, as a high quality officer.That is to say he was energetic, focused, eminently capable, helpful, affable, and respectful. From what I saw, he treated all fairly and earned everyone of the dear friends who have been sending his wife sympathy messages and were sending him recovery wishes. He, and all those like him are forever missed; no peoples have an inexhaustible supply of his sort.